


DIY Shadow Person Enclosure

by LizzyLue



Series: DIY Shadow Person Enclosure [1]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Aromantic, Asexuality Spectrum, Books, Digital Art, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Monsters, Not Beta Read, Other, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Queer platonic relationships, Roommates, Sickfic, Slice of Life, blanket burritos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22341127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizzyLue/pseuds/LizzyLue
Summary: It was one thing to be friends and lead separate lives. Lue was learning it was entirely different to share your life, and your home with a friend. Especially when that person was an entirely different species.Farmer and Krobus work out a few of the challenges of sharing a home with a mysterious blob creature and a crazy ape, respectively. Includes one illustration.
Relationships: Krobus & Player (Stardew Valley)
Series: DIY Shadow Person Enclosure [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2171793
Comments: 22
Kudos: 253





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ao3 has a severe lack of Krobus fics, here's my contribution. I haven’t posted a fic here since 2012, please be gentle. I really hope my writing has improved. I’ve read over this too many times already so I just went ahead and posted it, but it might get an edit later. This could become a oneshot collection if I have the motivation to write more. Please leave kudos and feedback! Otherwise I’ll never know what fics and ideas to continue. I've been writing in a vacuum for so long, does this story even make any sense? Is it follow-able? The doodle is at the end of the fic.

Lue came back into the house for a late lunch, the animals had been fed, and the greenhouse tended to. Snowflakes blew in through the doorway as she opened it, bringing with them a gust of frigid wind. It rolled over the floorboards and into the kitchen.

"Close the door, it's freezing!" Krobus squawked. He was sitting at the table, an open book resting in front of him. The breeze caused the pages to dance. He’d stolen the comforter off her bed and wrapped it tightly around himself. She couldn't keep the smile off her face, he looked like a little shivering burrito.

Lue forced the cabin door shut behind her, leaning back against it with her whole weight. She had to battle the force of the gale to get it locked. It finally closed with the sharp click of the latch.

“Winter on the surface is so cold and dry, my skin feels too tight,” Krobus complained. He kneaded at his amorphous face with his claws, trying to work some elasticity back into his surface.

"I'll light a fire," she offered.

"Please do."

Lue headed over to lift the logs from the stone hearth and toss them into the fireplace. After a few snaps of her fingers, the dry bark erupted into a plume of orange flame. She was getting a little better at this magic business. Even if all she could manage were a few simple, practical spells. At least she wasn't setting her crops on fire anymore.

She puttered around the kitchen, preparing her housemate a hot mug of tea. Instead of drinking it he clutched it in his hands, enjoying the heat that radiated from the ceramic. He held his face above the rim to feel the moisture of the steam rising off the surface. It curled through the air, and when he sighed the force of his breath broke apart the thin wispy forms, as if they had been an arcane illusion.

"Thank you," he said.

"What were you reading?" She asked.

"Frankenstein." He held up the paperback to show her the cover. There was a black and white woodblock print of the creature on the front, long black hair falling in front of his face. She'd had to read that one in grade school.

"Isn't Shelley... depressing?" Lue wondered. If she remembered correctly, the monster had been shunned by humanity until it had taken its own life in that story. She pulled a chair up beside his and sat down.

"Yes, but it's an old favorite, it's comforting in its familiarity. I don't have that many books, I know this one by heart now," he explained.

"Do you like books?" 

"I find them fascinating. My people don't have a written language like humans and dwarves, storytelling is an oral tradition."

"You're welcome to any of mine." Granted, all her books were about farming, and rudimentary magic that could help with farming. She couldn't remember the last time she'd read a work of fiction. Not since high school. Her life had gotten too busy and high stress. With college, and then her desk job. She’d never slowed down enough to have the patience for the long-winded fantasy novels she’d read as a teenager. After all of that she’d moved to the farm and then her life had been taken over by magic, adventure, and an eighteen hour work day.

"I did borrow a few,” he told her. “But I put them back!” he added, too quickly. For a moment, he looked a little guilty. "I have trouble understanding all the fine nuances of your ancient ritual."

"You mean... agriculture?" She raised an eyebrow at the odd phrasing.

"Yes, that. You do this instead of foraging and it's all so... obsessively organized. For reasons I cannot parse. There's categories in categories, and protocols for protocols. Thousands of strange new nouns and verbs to memorize. It all seems so over complex and a little...."

"Boring?"

"I was going to say arbitrary, or nonsensical, but yes that too. What deity are you appeasing that requires such drudgery?"

"Not many humans would understand some of the denser volumes about seed germination either. Those texts are all instructional, and specialized. It is over 10,000 years of tradition you'd have to learn besides."

"All the same, although I want to understand your people better, your books weren't exactly to my taste."

"I can order you some new ones if you like? I'm sure the library has a catalog, I'll pick one up for you."

"I’d appreciate that, but something to increase the humidity in your habitat first, it's getting to be unbearable," he bemoaned.

He did look pasty, more gray than solid black. She brushed the side of his face with her thumb. He didn't complain, just blinked at her with curiosity. His skin was normally soft and smooth to the touch, it had felt like the surface of a water balloon. Now it felt thin, almost paper-like.

"Are you... like a reptile? Or an amphibian?" She questioned.

"A bit, I have sensitive skin, and I shed."

"Are you supposed to be shedding soon?"

He shook his head in the negative, and she frowned. They had only been living together for a few weeks, and they were still learning about each other. He reminded her of a gecko, she had owned one when she was a little girl. Krobus liked warm, dark, humid enclosed spaces; just like Sybil had. 

\---

He'd frightened her one morning. Having just woken up, she had thrown off her covers and slid off the edge of her mattress. As her feet touched the floorboards she felt the sharp tips of claws against her skin. A hand suddenly grabbed her ankle. 

"Goo'morning," he'd mumbled at her from below, but she couldn't hear it over the sound of her own shriek. She flailed in his grip, and kicked him in the face. He crawled out from the shadows beneath her bed, holding his injured head in his hands.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to startle you," he apologized, teary eyed.

"Krobus! What were you doing under there?"

"Resting, it's nice and dark."

She sat down on the floor next to him, tucking her legs under her.

"No. I'm sorry for almost taking your head off. Are you ok?" Her hands hovered around him, she was unsure how to make amends.

He nodded. Krobus prodded at the spongy skin around the injury, it gave under the pressure like silly putty. He didn't appear to have any bones in his face to break, but there was a red mark above one eye that was beginning to purple into a bruise.

"Does that hurt?" She asked.

"It's a little sore," he admitted.

"Hang on, I have something for that."

She got up and disappeared around the corner and down the hall, in the direction of the kitchen. She retrieved a bag of frozen vegetables from the refrigerator. When she returned she knelt back down in front of him and pressed the bag against his forehead.

"Is that better?"

He felt the icy, bumpy texture of the packaged carrots and green beans under his fingers. A look of wonder crossed his face.

"This is very strange, but yes. Thank you." He smiled. 

"I don't mind you napping under the bed, but next time try not to surprise me like that," she cautioned.

"You don't like surprise 'good mornings'?" He looked shocked, and his voice carried a note of disbelief.

"Not from under my bed in the dark."

\---

She recalled the afternoon she'd come in off the fields to discover her living room in shambles. Up against one corner the couch had been flipped onto its side, along with every chair. A house plant was knocked over, the terracotta pot smashed and dirt spilling onto the wood floor. All her blankets and pillows from her bed had been dragged over the top of the pile. She'd approached and lifted the edge of a quilt to investigate. Krobus, curled up inside on a nest of couch cushions, growled at her and shielded his eyes from the light. He shuffled away into the far corner of the structure, out of sight. She moved the blanket back in place and returned to her work, deciding to let him rest. She could fix her living room later.

\---

On another occasion, he had shut himself in her bathroom. She'd been lounging on the sofa, checking the weather on the television. She became alarmed when she heard the sound of a babbling brook moving through the house, where it definitely did not belong. She looked up to see water rush out from under the bathroom door, creating a rising tide in the short hallway. At the sight, she jumped to her feet and barged in. The air inside was so choked by steam she could barely breathe. The mirrors were completely white with it.

Krobus was perched on the ceramic edge of the bathtub. The sides were overflowing with water. A haze rose up over the surface, looming over it. The silver dial, now damp with condensation, was turned up all the way. The hottest water the boiler could create shot out of the faucet and was splashing onto the floor tiles.

"Krobus! No!" She shouted.

She hissed under her breath as she approached the tub, the growing pool around her ankles turned scalding as she neared it’s source. He chirped in surprise as she scooped him up and balanced him against one hip. Lue leaned over the basin with her opposite arm to turn off the water. The dial squeaked as it spun, and finally the flow trickled to a stop.

“Do I weigh nothing to you?” he spoke up from beneath her arm.

“Like a sack of flour," Lue said. "You can't turn my house into a hot spring," she scolded as she marched him out of the bathroom.

"Why not? The mechanism is right here,” he argued, gesturing over her shoulder at the damage he’d caused.

"That is the bathtub, not the 'transform house button'. If you flood the house it will rot, I would have to replace all the floors, and probably the walls too. It’s already going to take all day to fix this mess."

"Oh...." He slumped against her side. His curly cue drooped, he looked so crestfallen she was tempted to let him destroy their house.

\---

Back in the present Krobus stared expectantly at her from over the edge of her duvet.

"It's passed store hours already, but I could pick up another humidifier in the morning," she told him.

He nodded, but still looked a little sad, and returned his gaze to his book. She kept thinking about it as she rose to start cooking dinner. She baked a fish fillet for herself, and pushed a plate of raw pumpkin guts across the table toward Krobus. 

He poked at the squishy mass with his fork. He picked out a seed and nibbled at it, but seemed disinterested. Krobus had never refused pumpkin before. He looked ill, ghostly. The longer she lived with him, the more she worried her home wasn't suitable to his needs. He had two humidifiers already. Would another really make a significant difference? She'd made her lizard a humid hide when she was a kid. She didn't have a tupperware container big enough for Krobus, but she did have plenty of building materials. 

Krobus got up, hardly having touched his meal, and slinked off to his room.

The next morning, his door was still shut, and he was nowhere else to be found. Usually, by the time she got up he would have moved into the kitchen or the living room. She wanted to check on him before she went out. She knocked, but there was no answer.

“Krobus? Are you in here?” she called as she pushed open the door just enough to peer inside. Her friend’s pale shape was slumped in a corner against the far wall. He was a few shades away from stark white.

“Krobus!” She darted across the room and knelt beside him. She pressed her hand against his forehead. His skin was shriveled like a prune, and he was freezing to the touch. “Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?”

Krobus groaned and tried to curl up into a tighter ball.

“I didn’t want you to think... that I couldn't live here with you,” he mumbled.

"Your health is more important,” she insisted.

"But... I want to stay,” he whined, looking up at her with pleading eyes.

"What can I do to help?"

"Hot spring...."

Lue scooped him up into her arms, and carried him towards the bathroom. He buried his face against her arm.

She started the bathtub.

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to use this,” he pointed out as water began to rush out of the faucet. It gurgled and splashed as it filled the basin. Warm mist rose into the air.

“It’s fine, as long as it doesn’t overflow. The bath needs to stay inside the tub.”

“Oh... ok.”

She tested the temperature with the back of her hand. After she determined it wasn’t too hot, she lowered him in. The surface reached up to his neck or... approximately where a neck would have been had he not been so... ovoid. Somewhere below his mouth.

She soaked a washcloth in the tub and placed it over his brow. His skin had started to darken as it absorbed the surrounding water. He hummed in contentment and smiled sleepily up at her. Krobus seemed to lose shape as he relaxed, his shadowy form expanded outward in the pool around him. She kissed his forehead.

“Stay put, I have an idea for your humidity problem.”

She rushed out into the yard to gather supplies. Lue soon sat on her bedroom floor surrounded by scrap and tools. With screws, plywood, and an electric drill she built a box— roughly rectangular. Lue cut a round Krobus sized hole on one side. She made it a bit smaller than seemed logical, knowing he could squeeze through tight spaces like an octopus. He'd appreciate it to let in as little light as possible. Lue had some dried sphagnum moss left over that had yet to be made into fertilizer. She placed it in a bucket and set it in the kitchen sink, letting the warm water immerse the fibers of the plant. She rung it out to get rid of excess, and used the moss to line the bottom of the box.

Lue dug through the hall closet for heat tape and a thermostat, she normally used them to make incubators. She stuck the strips to the bottom of the box. Finally, she screwed little wooden pegs to serve as feet on each corner. These would raise it off the floor and prevent a fire hazard. She set the new project under her bed and plugged it into the nearest outlet. Lue placed the temperature probe for the thermostat inside, and set the device to keep the interior about eighty degrees. He could adjust it as he saw fit, but she guessed that was about right.

When she returned to the bathroom. It was empty. There was a suspicious trail of tiny round footprints, tracking water through the mats and out the door. She followed the trail back to the bedroom.

Sure enough the box was occupied by a fat black blob.

“How’d you get passed me?” She asked, fighting an amused grin.

“I’m sneaky,” a contented, muffled voice said. He turned around in the box until his bright eyes looked out at her through the small aperture.

"Comfortable?"

Although his mouth was obstructed by the base of the box, his eyes shifted into smiling crescent shapes.

"Very, this is good, you are the best friend," he replied. "Bring me more moss please?" When she returned from the kitchen with the rest of the bucket, he stuck his hands outside to make grabbing motions.

“Yeeesss,” he hissed in delight as she deposited the globs of sodden plant matter into his open palms. He proceeded to push around the rest of the moss to make space for the newest chunks.

He kept the new humid hide under her bed. She did end up buying the extra humidifier for his room as well, just in case. The next morning she went to install it. Lue nudged open the door to his room with her hip, arms full of the machine. The windowless, dungeon-like space was always dark. The humidity caused water to collect on the stone walls, which had begun to develop a coat of algae. The only light streamed in through the door behind her. He’d taken advantage of her furniture catalog, and the book catalog. There were many knick-knacks and ornaments along with the original ceramic jars he’d decorated the room with. Columns and end tables were all carefully arranged to create hiding places. A new bookcase stood against the far wall, and dozens of books to line the shelves. Krobus himself was sitting in a large plush chair surrounded by teetering stacks. He’d gotten his color back, and was a healthy obsidian lump. He reclined, a book of folktales was open in his lap. She was a little concerned all the paper and fabrics would grow mildew.

Lue failed to see that he’d taken yet more moss from her supply shed, and it was now scattered about on the floor of his room. She stepped on a wet slimy pile of something in the low light, while barefoot. It squelched and seeped between her toes. The volume of her scream caused Krobus to jump out of his chair, his book clattered onto the stone floor. It was so loud it woke a rooster outside. The bird’s piercing cry set off a chain reaction of baying and shrieking animals in the entire barnyard.

Someday soon, Lue hoped, she and Krobus would learn to coexist in relatively little chaos.


	2. Update!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> !!!

Hello, there is a new chapter but I added it as a new part in a series. I'm just including the link here for everyone who subscribed to the fic directly: <https://archiveofourown.org/works/29561601>


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